Posted on Friday 17 November 2006
So my legal namesake CALEA has been a source of interesting eyebrow raising for those who know its name when they are introduced to me.
Today it is in the news again.
Paul Kouroupas, vice president of regulatory affairs for Global Crossing, strongly criticized the Federal Communications Commission’s broadening of a 1994 law–originally intended to cover telephone providers–as disproportionately costly, complex, and riddled with privacy concerns. His company is one of the world’s largest Internet backbone providers.
“Our customers are large Fortune 500 companies–not too many of those companies are conducting drug deals or terrorist activities out of Merrill Lynch’s offices or using their phones in that way,” Kouroupas said at an event here sponsored by the DC Bar Association. “By and large we don’t get wiretap requests, yet we’re faced with the costs to come into compliance,” which he estimated at $1 million.
At issue is an order issued last fall by the Federal Communications Commission that set a deadline of May 14, 2007, by which most broadband and Internet phone providers are required to reengineer their networks for easier snooping by law enforcement. The move expanded the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, which Congress wrote to impose obligations on telephone companies, but not Internet providers.
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